Cops in crime fiction

Last week my daughter told me that TV shows and stories about cops are out. The recent protests about police brutality have cast police in a very different light; not as heroes pursuing justice and saving lives, as portrayed on TV and in novels, but as brutal thugs supporting a corrupt and discriminatory way of life. Even in Canada a harsh light has been cast in the dark corners of police interaction with the Black and Indigenous community.

Since I am currently writing my eleventh Inspector Green novel, my daughter's pronouncement gave me pause. My fictional police officers are flawed but, at their core, mostly good guys. I do not write about police corruption, discrimination, or the morally murky world where organized crime and police enforcement meet. My stories are about ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary crisis, and Inspector Green himself, as the son of Holocaust survivors, is passionate about bringing bad guys to account, pursuing justice for victims and supporting the marginalized in society.

Like most of my fellow writers of police procedural novels, I've never pretended my stories were about how policing operates in the real world, not because I want to whitewash the flaws and portray a fantasy ideal, but because most real-life murders and the minutiae of police investigations don't make good storytelling. And that's what mysteries are all about. It's not about the police per se, but about the struggles of people facing their darkest hour, the choices they make, and the fallout from those.

In most mysteries, the murder is merely a dramatic device around which the story revolves. Whether the writer splatters blood all over the page or hides it discreetly offstage, the resulting story is about the interactions, relationships, and conflicts of the characters, both within themselves and between each other. It's about the unravelling of those relationships and the quest for justice for those involved. The protagonist, whether it's an amateur sleuth, an investigating journalist, or a professional police officer, is just the agent in that search, and not the main focus of the story. I think readers love mysteries because of that fundamental theme of searching for justice and righting a wrong.

That said, there is certainly room to inject some reality into this idealized fictional scenario. The atmosphere in the police squad room, the inclusiveness, and the biases can and should be addressed. When I wrote my very first Inspector Green novel, back in the mists of time, I included no female police officers (because that was the reality of the day), but I have slowly been adding them and addressing their unique struggles in later books. Still later I began to think about racial inclusiveness, and in this latest book I have tried to take this one step further.

There has been much written recently about how white the crime fiction world is, both in terms of who is writing it and who is reading it. There has been talk about how to increase diversity and inclusion. I won't go into that further here, but I think all of us writers should be taking a look at the stories we tell and the characters we create. We are always looking for new, compelling themes to wrap a good story around, and the insights emerging from the recent soul-searching on racism can only enrich them as well as making them more relevant to more people's lives. 

In praise of authenticity

I am sitting in a hotel room near the Calgary airport, waiting for my flight home to Ottawa in the morning. It's the last day of my two-week Alberta research trip, and as they say, "the best laid plans..." I had intended to spend most of the day at the Calgary Public Library, doing some last minute digging into topics that came up on my road trip, but Calgary has been hit by an unseasonal record snowfall and the roads are nearly impassible. Plus I have no winter boots to manage the snow on the ground, which is currently about ten inches but still falling.

So the library research is not to be. The joys of being a writer.

A couple of recent posts have alluded to the need for greater authenticity in modern crime writing. I have always been a fan of realism. At the core, of course, our stories are made up. Murders that didn't happen, characters that don't exist... But the trick, at least in my type of writing, is to take the reader on a trip that feels real, that has enough touchstones in their real experience that they can believe they are immersed in something that could happen to them. So although I create fictional characters, they are often amalgams of people I know, with traits and background experiences that can ring true. I borrow from friends, colleagues, and family shamelessly, although I always hope the resulting fiction is unrecognizable.

I believe the greatest authenticity has to be in the realm of character. Writers can develop entire fictional towns or indeed universes, with geography and climate that is utterly unfamiliar. But if the character doesn't seem real or relatable, if the writer hasn't fashioned him to be at once complex and yet consistent with what he's been through, if he doesn't do things that follow from who he is, then readers will just bail on the story. That's why I work so hard to ground my characters in the place that has fashioned them. That's one of the reasons I always try to visit and absorb the settings I write about. The flat, empty prairie fields are indeed different from the teeming streets of Toronto. The wide-open, sparsely travelled rural highways of Alberta are an entirely different experience than the white-knuckle kamikaze trips along Canada's busiest highway, the 401. The pace of life is slower and more peaceful, the chance to reflect and enjoy is far greater.

As a writer, I need to feel those differences to help create the characters. And then of course, there is the landscape itself. It becomes a character that I hope will seduce readers and take them on a journey far from home. Canada is a country of extraordinary diversity in geography as well as culture and history, and I want readers to experience that as vividly as I did. Neither photos nor my imagination could never do justice to the vivid textures of the reality, from the weathered grey of the abandoned homesteads to the rich gold of the wheat fields and the Mars-like hills and hoodoos of the badlands. I only hope the words I ultimately find will do them justice.

So authenticity is not just about avoiding the errors that yank readers out of the story or cause them to roll their eyes in protest. It's about drawing the reader deeper into a rich and believable story that will keep them nodding their heads as if they were right there at the character's' side.

That said, I don't plan to put this record snow storm into my next Amanda Doucette book about the Alberta badlands. In THE ANCIENT DEAD, it will be hot and sunny, with the brilliant, open blue sky for which the province is famous. But who knows? It's nice to know that Alberta's weather is unpredictable enough that if I need a snowfall– to hide a body or impede a rescue, say– I can put it in.

Where fact meets fiction

In this era of fake news, the line between truth and make-believe has become so blurred that it's becoming increasingly difficult to know what's real or to trust anything you read. And I'm not referring to a profound philosophical debate on whether there exists such a thing as absolute truth or whether all truth is embedded within a context- cultural, physical, or what have you.

FAKE NEWS!!!

I mean facts that can be supported by evidence or replicated in some way. Claims for which there is some proof. People vary on the breadth and type of proof they require to accept something as likely true; rigorous science types demand evidence based on objective scientific knowledge, while others entertain other possible, as yet unknowable, realms of truth such as the supernatural, astrology, ghosts, divine revelation, etc.

But within the realm, some consistency and set of principles exist against which information's veracity can be measured. So if two news sources make opposing claims, or someone says one thing one day and the opposite the next, most of us know one of the claims at least is not true. We may choose to believe the one we like better, or we may end up not believing either. The inaccuracy may stem from simple error, ignorance, incomplete knowledge, or deliberate deception, but in this global information age, in which social media allows the rapid dissemination of information without any checks on accuracy, "untruths" can be repeated over and over so quickly that the repetitions themselves become the proof. How do you know...? Well, I read an article...

One end result of this, besides confusion and ignorance, is a distrust of all information. It's a shaky foundation on which to stand - not knowing what is real and what isn't - and it makes us cling all the more fiercely to the sources we do trust.

What does this have to do with writers? Well, making things up is our stock and trade. Science fiction and fantasy writers make up entire universes, but mystery writers generally ground our sinister deeds in the real world. Readers generally know that the whole thing is made up, and don't rely on the facts from novels to support their PhD dissertations.

Yet among writers, there are those who research meticulously, not just the topics they tackle but the setting, the time period, the dialect, and the local customs, while others don't research much at all. I once heard a very well known and respected author of police procedurals say that he'd never talked to a police officer or checked protocols. Others say, "I make it all up. It's fiction, after all."

But what about historical fiction? Medical or legal thrillers? Or adventure novels set in exotic locales? If a writer makes up all the detail on which these stories are based, the reader is taken on a fake journey. Part of the thrill of these books is the the peek inside a real world very different from what we know. From these books, we learn about 12th century Spain, or the back alleys of Venice, or the drama of the courtroom. Most writers of these books are historians or doctors or lawyers, and we trust that the world they have led us into is real (except for the body, of course). We would feel cheated if we learned they'd made the whole thing up.

When it comes to regular, contemporary novels, the rules are less clear. Some readers don't care that hairdressers solve murders or that cats talk. They know it's all in good fun. But once the writer has set the rules of engagement, they should adhere to them. Is this a real place? A real profession? A genuine issue? If so, know what you're talking about. Writers spin a web to draw a reader into their story, willing the reader to suspend their disbelief and go along for the ride. Any false note that jolts the reader out of the story breaks the spell.

As readers, we all have our trip wires - those false notes that ruin a story for us. It can be crime scene investigators who tromp all over the crime scene with their long hair flowing in the breeze. It can be streets in the wrong place in a city we know intimately. It can be weather that is wrong for the season in that place. For me as a psychologist, it is any superficial, pop psychology explanation of motives and behaviour.

So I am firmly in the research camp. Not only do I want readers to go on a journey with me, but I don't want them to be jerked out of the story and I want them to trust that what they are reading is as accurate as I can make it.  That's why last year I spent my summer reading books on Jihad and ISIS, and my winter on a winter camping trip in the mountains, all to research THE TRICKSTER'S LULLABY. It's why next week I am renting a cottage in Georgian Bay (a great improvement over winter camping!) to research the setting of my next book, PRISONERS OF HOPE.

I'm sure I will still get some things wrong, but the more believable the web I weave, the more I hope readers will stay under the spell. And in the process I hope it's more than a journey into make-believe; I hope they enjoy learning some interesting information about a world different from theirs. Information they can trust.

I'm curious to know how other writers and readers feel. As readers, what are your trip wires? Does it bother you to encounter factual errors or misrepresentations in fiction? As authors, how important is accuracy in your books and how much do you research to "get it right"?

The things we do for art

Barbara here, and in case you don't know, that's something of a miracle. A week ago, my continued existence was in some doubt. Not because I had some dreadful disease or was planning to enter the Indie 500, but because I was going winter camping. In Northern Ontario, during the last two weeks of January, statistically the coldest period in the northern hemisphere. This latter fact only occurred to me once I had registered for the trip and paid my money.

As a writer, I am always trying for realism, accuracy, and vivid description. I don't want readers to be yanked out of my stories by the outraged thought 'that's ridiculous!' or 'that's not what it's like!' My next book is set in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, on a camping/ skiing expedition in the middle of winter, and at some point in balmy September, immersed the early pages of the first draft, I thought "well, I can't possibly write about winter camping without experiencing it". Without hearing the wolf howls at night and the squeak of boots on frozen snow, without feeling the bone-chilling cold of the ground beneath my sleeping bag and the frost on my nose, without seeing how the die-hard lovers of the great winter outdoors cope with stoves and tents and cooking (not to mention latrines, which I plan to give only passing mention in the book).

So I decided to try it myself. How hard could it be? I'm a fit, adventurous, essentially upbeat soul who is prepared to try most things once in the interests of sampling life. There are few things I won't consider. Eating cockroaches. swimming with sharks, and playing with snakes are among those few. But I love the great outdoors, I love camping, I love crisp, fluffy snow. It will be fun!

So I researched winter camping adventure companies, found one that sounded perfect for my needs, and paid my money. I spent half of December and January combing the sales in an attempt to get at least some of the gear the outfitter recommended. How many times will I use  -20 degree sleeping bag? Or camp booties? Or anoraks? So I opted to rent some of the gear from the outfitter to save costs and ensure the right gear. And last week, with the dogs in the kennel and our duffel bags packed, my friend and I set off. The temperature, which had been ridiculously warm since November, suddenly plunged, and we found ourselves hiking eight kilometres in to the base camp in -20 sunshine.

The base camp reminded me of girl guide camp from nearly sixty years ago– a canvas tent set on a wooden platform with a stove and wooden bunkbeds inside. We met the rest of the intrepid tour members and we had a delicious meal of chill cooked on the wood stove. First note to writing self– one-pot dinners are best, and make sure everyone has one bowl and one utensil (a spoon). Saves on clean-up. That night the temperature plunged below -30 and we froze, giving me a vivid sense of frozen noses.  I won't even mention the mid-night latrine excursions, on this night or any of the subsequent ones. Some things are too much detail for readers.

The next day, hauling our toboggans, we trekked on snowshoe out to a new campsite at the base of the mountain we were to climb. I learned a lot about ragged breathing, aching thighs, soaring eagles, wolf and deer tracks, long, blinding expanses of frozen lake, and the sheer relief of arriving. I learned about putting up tents, spreading fir boughs as bedding, collecting water and firewood, and pulling together. I learned the closeness that forms among strangers gathered around a wood stove to share food, drink, and laughter at the end of an exhausting day.

That night I learned that you can dry wet mittens and moccasins from strings in the tent, and when you're tired enough, you can fall asleep on the frozen ground with nothing but fir boughs as padding. The next day we climbed a mountain on snowshoes and stood at the top, triumphant, looking south over Lake Huron. By then I had forgotten that this was a research trip, not a journey of self-discovery, and I had to remind myself to ask questions and take pictures. I hadn't even opened my notebook. Flickering candlelight is a poor source of light for these aging eyes anyway.

When I returned to civilization four days later, I had learned a great deal that will find its way into my new book, but I had learned much more about myself. About my limits, my strengths, and my capacity for joy and adventure. That's the cool thing about this writing life. It leads us into places and on adventures that we would never have imagined, and we are the richer for it. I am thinking I will pick some place totally different for my next book.

Costa Rica, perhaps. Or Hawaii. After all, it's such a big, fascinating world out there.